• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
 
1List of Contents
1. PROJECT PRESENTATION
 p. 2 
 2. PRESENTATION OFMEMBER INSTITUTIONS
 p.5 
 3. OTHER NEWS
 p.7 
 4. ABOUT THE NEWSLETTER 
 p.7 
 
 Welcome to the first issueof the EPOP ProjectNewsletter
Popular Roots of European Culture Through Film, Comics and Serialized Literature 
(EPOP Project) is a research andpopularization project funded by the EuropeanCommission in the frame of the Culture Programme 2007and is promoted by the Department of Music andPerforming Arts of the University of Bologna, the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Limoges, the PallasInstitute for Art Historical and Literature Studies -University of Leiden, the GRIT (Groupe des Recherche surl’Image et le Texte) of the Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve, and the Department for Culture of the Provinceof Pescara. The project started on November 24, 2008 and will be completed on May 24, 2010. The EPOP Project Newsletter will provide news about thedevelopment of the Project’s activities and will circulate any information on research, initiatives and events concerning the history of European popular culture. The no. 1, January 2009 issue gives an overview of theEPOP Project and of its members. We invite you to sendus information on your activity or any other news relating to our research field: we will be glad to include them in thenext issues.If you have any suggestions regarding the newsletter oranything relating to the project, please send your messageto: federico.pagello@unibo.it With the best wishes,EPOP Project Publication Committee
 
 
21) Project Presentation
 The EPOP Project deals with an object that has received a growing attention in the last few decades, both inside and outside academic studies: the fictional texts (both written and visual) serially produced by European culture industries between mid-XIXth century andearly XXth century. Throughout all Europe research in the history of popular literature andits transmedia relationships with visual narrative forms (such as film and comics) hasdramatically increased in many national contexts, producing a proliferation of publications,university courses, websites, public events, networking among collectioners, etc. However, while the urgency of a transnational approach to this phenomenon has been acknowledgedcommunication among cultural institutions concerned in various ways with research andarchival preservation in this domain in the different European countries still remains flawed. This is why the EPOP project aims to surpass the cultural and linguistic boundaries thathave until now prevented a true appraisal of the continental dimension of industrial popularculture produced between the Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries by establishing atransnational network of researchers and institutions working to promote a better knowledgeof this particular cultural heritage among EU citizens.Eight countries are already involved. Cooperation among a wide range of cultural institutionsin different countries aims to produce a network of research, didactics and popularizationactivities. Several activities have been planned: Creation of a searchable database withdetailed information; Creation of a multilingual on line Virtual Museum of archivalmaterials; Publication of a collection of essays (in English and French);Education/Information seminars addressed at students and teachers; Publication of amultilingual CD-Rom with teaching resources; An exhibition of reproductions of archivalmaterials; Production of a periodical newsletter.
Project Topic 
 Industrial popular culture emerged in the mid-Nineteenth century as a literary phenomenonthrough a range of different serial formats (such as the
roman-feuilleton 
in France, the
 penny dreadfuls 
in the United Kingdom, the
Kolportageliteratur 
in Germany, etc.). Circulated
 
 
3
throughout all Europe by means of an extensive process of translation, imitation andplagiarism, and subsequently largely reused as a primary source in films and comics fictions,popular literature constitutes an important native phenomenon for European culturalidentity, a shared depository of themes, narrative
topoi 
and figures – as well as, because of thecrucial function of illustrations, iconography – that can instinctively be recognized by the audiences as their own collective memory. The socio-cultural relevance of this production appears clearly in a continental perspective:reprising and reworking Gramsci’s oft-cited contention, we might say that popular fictionsare not only national-popular, but fundamentally “international-popular.” The works of famous authors such as Eugene Sue, Alexandre Dumas, Ponson du Terrail, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, Karl May, Emilio Salgari and so on, and “immortal”characters such as Rocambole, Sherlock Holmes, Raffles, Arsène Lupin, Fantomas, LordLister, Morgan the Pirate, Maciste, Belphégor, etc. have been the privileged object of anininterrupted process of cultural exchange throughout all European countries. Theremarkably visual character of such fictions – made explicit both in the illustrations and theiconography associated with these products and in later film and comics adaptations – hasenormously facilitated their international dissemination, and may still today represent apowerful means to promote intercultural dialogue among the population of the differentcountries that constitute the European Union. The research teams involved in the project (led by Prof. Monica Dall’Asta in Bologna, Prof. Jacques Migozzi in Limoges, Prof. Jean-Louis Tilleuil in Louvain-la Neuve and Prof. Adriaan van der Weel in Leiden) will provide different approaches (such as Film History, History of Popular Literature, Comics History, Book History) as needed by the transmedial nature of the subject.
Description of the activities 
Research will be focused on achieving several activities:1. Creation of a searchable database concerning the origins of European popular culturefrom mid-XIXth century to the third decade of XXth century. This will be a useful tool forany researcher interested in exploring these subjects from a European perspective.
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...